Killing Time

Chapters

The Days Never Know
The Blessings of Old Friends
Do What You Are Afraid To
The Depth of Life
Beauty Steals Inward

The Days Never Know

For a long moment, Rarity stared at the spot next to her front door where the centuries-old alicorn Princess of Friendship Twilight Sparkle had stood just moments before.

Or had she? Was this all a dream? A hallucination? She turned and looked at her kitchen table, where two half-drunk cups of tea sat.

She didn’t think so.

In fact she was quite confident the strange events of the past few hours had actually happened. She trusted her senses, and if nothing else she was completely unsurprised by the revelation that the quirky unicorn she’d helped save the world a few months ago eventually ascended to alicornhood and princesshood. She’d had a feeling since that first adventure together that Twilight Sparkle was destined for great things.

Rarity was pleased by this confirmation of her good judgment.

She gathered their teacups and moved them to the sink, carefully washing, rinsing, and drying each of them, before putting them away in their designated cabinet.

It would have been interesting to be friends with this new—well, old—Twilight. Rarity wondered if she would change her mind. She hoped she would.

Rarity turned around to go upstairs to her workroom and start designing Twilight’s coronation dress, but leapt backwards as a crack rent the still air of her foyer and Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, fully grown alicorn, appeared before her.

“Are you serious about this?” demanded Twilight.

“Oh my stars!” gasped Rarity, falling back against her kitchen counter. “Twilight, you startled me!”

“What? Oh.” Twilight drew back. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, dear, it’s fine,” Rarity said, standing upright and shaking her head. “I did wonder if you might reconsider, I just didn’t expect it would be so soon.”

“It’s been six months.”

Rarity blinked.

“I did say this would be profoundly weird for you,” Twilight pointed out.

“Indeed,” Rarity managed. “Well, what’s six months against six centuries, I suppose? Happy belated birthday, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“It took you six months to decide it was safe?”

“It took me six months to decide I was lonely enough to not care,” Twilight admitted after a moment.

Rarity’s heart twinged. The poor thing. A strange thought to have about an immortal alicorn goddess, she supposed.

“I’m still worried about that, though,” Twilight went on. “As much as I might want it not to be, this would be a two-way street. We can’t have a friendship without exchanging information. I’m inevitably going to leak data about future events to you. Stars, you’re going to end up learning things about me before you otherwise would through the natural course of your friendship with me. With past me. Er, present me. Young me. It’s going to influence our relationship—in my past and your future.”

“But you’ve made up your mind? You’re willing to risk that? You and I will attempt this friendship across time?”

A moment of pregnant silence passed before Twilight said, in a small voice, “Yes.”

Rarity smiled. “Then we haven’t anything to worry about.”

Twilight looked at her, plainly confused. “What do you mean?”

“Twilight, dear, if you’ve made up your mind that we’re going to attempt this, then there are only two paths forward: either we try and the friendship doesn’t work out, for whatever reason, or it does work out and we become fast friends—as I expect will be the case. But either case has already occurred in your past, and you are the product of your past. You standing here in this moment proves that everything works out fine, whether you and I become friends or not.”

Twilight squinted. “I’m still not sure that’s how time works.”

Rarity laughed and reached for the cabinet. “Well, let’s find out together. Tea?”

On her next visit, Twilight gave Rarity a journal, protected with thorough enchantments making it impervious to damage or decay, along with a matching protective box, similarly enchanted. When Rarity was free for a visit, she would write the date and time in the journal, and Twilight would appear at that date and time.

“I suppose it’s also enchanted to transmit to a matching journal in your time? When I write in mine, the text appears in yours?”

“Oh, nothing that complex. I could have entangled them, sure, but it was simpler and more straightforward to get information from the past to the future the old-fashioned way. I don’t have a copy of this journal—I have this journal. It’s six hundred and fifteen years old, and contains the dates and times between now and the end of your lifetime where you wanted to see me.”

“What? How did you get it? If you’ve had it all this time, you must have known all along this was going to happen—why all the angst about whether we became friends or not?”

Twilight shook her head. “I haven’t had it all this time. I came up with the idea yesterday, my yesterday, and decided where it would be safe for you to bury it in its protective box… later… so that it will survive into my present time. Then I went there and started digging and it was waiting for me. I went to my local stationery shop and found a matching journal, and had a matching box made, and enchanted them both and brought them here.”

“So you already know how many times you visit me.”

“I do.”

“But I presume you will not share that information with me.”

“I won’t, no.”

“Hmph. And I shall bury this at the appointed place for you to find in the far future.”

“Evidently, yes, since I’ve already recovered it in the future.”

“I shall bury it later,” Rarity said. “Before I die.”

Twilight paused. “Yes.”

“And you know when that will happen, but likewise will not share that with me.”

Twilight gave Rarity a level look. “Do you really want to know the exact date of your death now?”

“...No. No, I suppose not. You’ll just have to give me fair warning, hmm?”

“I spent the day at the library,” Rarity said.

“Do tell,” Twilight said.

It was another visit. They were in Rarity’s sitting room, with Rarity on her favorite divan and Twilight lounging on a large floor cushion. Between them on a low-slung table rested a wooden game board with a square grid of lines, onto which Rarity and Twilight took turns placing black and white stones as they chatted.

Twilight remembered how, centuries ago, Rarity had surprised her by already knowing how to play Go when Twilight had pulled out her board. Virtually no one else in Ponyville did. Her enigmatic smile at the time made more sense now.

“You got it into your head that we should exchange book recommendations,” Rarity said as she set another black stone on the board. “I think you were missing your unicorn friends back in Canterlot, and wanted someone to talk about books with.”

“I didn’t have any friends, unicorn or otherwise, back in Canterlot to talk about books with,” Twilight reminded her, clicking her own stone into place.

“Oh,” Rarity frowned, “that’s right, I’d forgotten. I’m already so used to being friends with you—well, past you—that it’s hard to picture you holed up in some castle tower all alone.”

“Not completely alone. I did have Spike.”

“Goodness, how is my little Spikey-wikey? I assume not so little anymore.”

“Very much not. He was fine the last time I saw him, though it’s been a while. He entered his first major hibernation phase at around his five hundredth year, and he was roughly the size of Applejack’s barn.”

Rarity blinked and looked over the board at Twilight, her next stone hovering in her magic. “You mean to say he’s been hibernating for over a century?”

Twilight took a moment to survey the board. “He has. I check in on him every few decades. I miss him, of course, but it is what it is.”

Rarity clicked her stone down thoughtfully. “I expect that doesn’t help with the loneliness.”

“It really doesn’t.” Twilight played her next piece and laughed somewhat helplessly. “I can’t imagine what he’ll say when he discovers how I’ve chosen to cope with it.”

They played in silence for a few turns.

“Yes, well. At any rate, I visited you in your library today, and I believe I surprised you.”

“Oh?”

“Quite. We were on our way to the fiction section to look for a thriller I thought you might enjoy—I do love a good political thriller, and you being from Canterlot and spending so much time around the royal court, you know—but on the way I happened to catch sight of a book I recognized and you were so taken aback you stopped dead in your tracks.”

Twilight grinned. “I think I remember the book you mean.”

“Right Angle’s Galloping Guide to Geometry. You said you didn’t expect a fashion designer such as myself to care about mathematics.”

“You explained that you’d once had a very involved design that you needed to get exactly right, so you spent a month teaching yourself advanced geometry and topology so you could figure out the best way to shape and join your materials.”

“I’m still quite proud of that piece. And I’ve used the techniques I developed in many since! That month was quite the worthwhile investment, if I do say so myself.”

“That was the first time I really understood how dedicated and passionate you could be about something important to you. It was very…” Twilight bit her lip and placed a stone. “Impressive. I gained a lot of respect for you that day. Today. Saw you in a new light.”

“Of course you did, darling. And now how’s this for earning a bit of respect?” Rarity laid a final black stone with a triumphant flourish of her horn. “Checkmate!”

Twilight stared down the board, then stared up at Rarity. “Okay, first of all, this isn’t chess. Second of all…” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’ve never played Go before?”

“Oh? Did I say I’ve never played before? Perhaps I neglected to mention the kirin exchange student we hosted for a year in my youth…”

Twilight was silent for a moment, processing this. “You did mention that. Six hundred years ago.” She began clearing the board and mumbled, “I thought you made it up to cover learning how to play from me, now.”

Rarity batted her eyelashes. “It’s nice to know I still have some surprises up my sleeve.”

Slowly, carefully, they settled into a routine.

If Rarity found herself with a spare half hour or afternoon or weekend, she would go to her bedroom, remove the enchanted box from its hiding place in the bottom drawer of her dresser, remove the enchanted journal from the enchanted box, and write the current date and time on the next blank line.

By the time she had put the journal away and returned downstairs, Twilight was waiting for her.

They would share a cup of tea, or Twilight would disguise herself so they could go for a walk, or even a longer jaunt out of town, as Rarity’s schedule allowed.

Over time Rarity developed little flourishes: writing not just the date and time but how long she expected the visit could last, perhaps a smiley face or a frowny one to indicate her mood so Twilight could be forewarned, a brief note on plans she might have for the visit so Twilight would know what to expect.

Sometimes, say when she was having a bad time and needed her older friend’s counsel, she had to resist the urge to write “urgent!” There was no need. She and the Twilight of the future were decoupled in time, and days, weeks, months, even years might pass for Twilight between their visits, but she always appeared precisely at the time Rarity wrote down.

“I cannot believe I ever considered you my friend,” Rarity said bitterly.

Twilight shrugged and held up the dress. “What can I say? I hadn’t been around you long enough to learn anything about fashion yet.” She eyed it critically. “Not your best work, is it?”

Rarity’s body remained motionless, draped in her sheer pink robe and shod in her fuzzy pink slippers, but her head rotated smoothly, dangerously, until her eyes locked onto Twilight’s. “Are you being serious right now?”

“I know, I know, you were just following your customer’s directions. It’s not your fault it’s so awful.” Twilight lifted the hem and let it go, watching it fall naturally into a most unflattering angle.

Somewhat mollified, Rarity returned to her dress form and the half-assembled workpiece on it.

“But really, who doesn’t know there are three stars on Orion’s Belt?”

“Get,” Rarity said. “OUT,” she roared, flinging a fuzzy pink slipper as hard as she could through the space Twilight had just been occupying.

She stood and seethed for a moment, then stomped out of her workshop. She stomped into every room upstairs and downstairs. She stomped outside.

No Twilight.

She stomped back into her boutique and up the stairs and to the dresser in her room and flung open the bottom drawer.

Below the previous line, she wrote the same date but a time ten minutes later and added, in angry block lettering, GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT. She slapped the invulnerable journal back into its invulnerable box and hurled the invulnerable box back into its decidedly vulnerable drawer and as she slammed the drawer shut Princess Twilight Sparkle walked into the room.

Rarity glared at her. She was grinning.

“You, er, dropped this,” Twilight said, holding up a fuzzy pink slipper as the bedroom door swung shut behind her.

Rarity’s glaring continued unabated. She snatched the slipper with her magic and reshod her hoof with it.

“You seem to have broken your dresser,” Twilight said.

Rarity ignored the way the crooked drawer was hanging out of the shattered body of the dresser, and her glare sharpened to a knifepoint.

“Let me fix that for you,” Twilight said. “I think it’s the least I can do.”

“It is absolutely the very least you can do, yes,” Rarity said as gentle magic rewove the splintered timber and reseated the drawer on its guides and restored the wood’s polished finish.

“That wasn’t very kind of me,” Twilight said.

“Forcing me to make you a hideous dress six hundred years ago, or rubbing my snout in it just now?”

“Yes,” Twilight said.

“Quite right.”

“Friends can be difficult sometimes,” Twilight said. “And any friendship can have rough patches. But in my experience, with true friends, the benefits vastly outweigh the frustrations.”

Rarity grunted.

Twilight continued, “This was also a valuable learning experience for an up-and-coming fashionista, I think. The customer isn’t always right, even in matters of taste, and it’s okay for you, as a subject matter expert in this space, to push back. They aren’t just coming to you for your seamstress skills—impeccable as they are—but for your design expertise, which is vast, and growing every day.”

Rarity sniffed. “Yes. I suppose they are.”

“And it can be difficult to mix friends and work. It can require both sides to offer the other a little more grace than might otherwise be usual.”

Rarity snorted. “What in Equestria makes you think that you and the rest of our friends deserve any grace? My potential career is in tatters and I’ve been completely humiliated in front of the entire town. How am I supposed to go on from this?”

Twilight smiled. “I think all I’ll say is that we’re on our way over right now to try to demonstrate our remorse and make things right.”

“Tch. Of course you are. You’re all lovely ponies and I’m honored to be friends with each of you. But don’t think I shall let you off easy.”

“Of course not. And if we don’t grovel sufficiently, well, there’s always exile.”

“Hmm. Yes, there’s some merit there. Exile, if needs must. You will simply have to visit me wherever I end up.”

The bell on the boutique’s front door jingled—goodness, did I forget to close up shop? not that anyone would be calling on my services today anyway—and hoofsteps made their way up the stairs. Several sets.

“I think that’s my cue,” Twilight said. “You’ll have to let me know how it all works out.”

“Oh, as if you don’t already know. Now begone! Shoo!”

Twilight smirked and vanished as somepony knocked on her door. “Rarity? You okay in there?” Pinkie’s voice called out. “You haven’t come out for days!”

Rarity shook herself out, put on her most dramatic voice, and began pacing around her room. This called for a serious performance.

“I’m never coming out! I can’t show my face in Ponyville ever again! I used to be somepony. I used to be respected! I made dresses—beautiful, beautiful dresses…”

One day found them strolling through the Whitetail Woods, Twilight back in her disguise, both of them chatting about this or that.

Another found them catching the train to Canterlot for the weekend to take in a show Rarity had always wanted to see and Twilight had never gotten around to.

The next found them staying in, a half-hour catch-up over tea at Rarity’s kitchen table.

Rarity gossiped about their friends, events and drama that Twilight remembered, or had forgotten about, or even had never known about in the first place.

Twilight vented about her royal duties in the future, the ins and outs of palace intrigue and nobles bickering and treaty negotiations. Rarity offered advice and suggestions, and marveled at how nothing seemed to change in that regard.

Time—days and months and years for Rarity, years and decades and centuries for Twilight—rolled on.

“I’ve realized something… odd,” Rarity said.

They were playing Go again. Twilight tried harder now that she knew Rarity wasn’t a novice, especially since Rarity had won the last half-dozen games this year. Not that Rarity was counting.

“Mmm?” Twilight said, staring at the board, deep in thought planning her next sequence of moves.

“I believe I have a crush on you,” Rarity said.

Twilight nodded absentmindedly and placed a stone.

“Not you as such, I should clarify,” Rarity said, placing her own stone. “My you. The you of my time. Young you.”

“Uh-huh,” Twilight said, frowning at the board.

“It really sort of crept up on me, but we were having lunch together today and I looked over at her—you—her, and she was laughing over her alfalfa sandwich at a story I’d just finished, and I realized I was feeling something… more than friendship, you know?”

“Mm-hmm,” Twilight said, finally playing another stone.

Rarity dropped hers onto the board with barely a thought. “The thing of it is, I can’t decide if it’s a feeling I should act upon or not.” She watched Twilight’s eyes flick from stone to stone. “I would have thought… if there was anything to this… that you might have mentioned it, sanctity of the timeline or not. Perhaps it’s a passing crush that either I never pursued or I did pursue and the result was so forgettable that it’s completely slipped your mind, centuries later.”

Twilight set a stone on an intersection, looking relieved, but Rarity immediately played one in return and Twilight slumped, frowning again.

“Or perhaps I do pursue it, and we fall in love, and it’s such a profound experience for you that you can’t bear to speak of it to me, lest you inadvertently muddle the timeline and separate us forever.”

Resolve flooded Twilight’s face, and with a satisfied “ha!” she placed a stone. Grinning, she looked up at Rarity. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Never mind, dear. Just thinking out loud.”

Rarity burst into the boutique, her face flushed with triumph, and skidded to a halt at the sight of Princess Twilight Sparkle sitting in her living room.

“You!” she said.

“Not like you to be late to one of our visits,” Twilight said, an enigmatic smile floating across her face. “Looked all over the boutique for you. Very strange.”

“Hah! Yes! Well! I pre-scheduled the visit earlier today and then a prior engagement ran longer than I expected!” Rarity flipped her mane over her shoulder. “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Twilight put her eyebrows up. “Why, whatever do you mean, Rarity?” She leaned closer. “Do you have something to share, some bit of news?”

Rarity closed the distance and fell upon her alicorn friend, pummeling every inch of her that she could reach with her hooves. “How—could—you—not—tell me!” she cried, punctuating each word with a strike.

Twilight giggled and ignored the assault, which only led Rarity to redouble her efforts, and finally Twilight was forced to ignite her horn and lift Rarity away, leaving her flailing wildly—and harmlessly—in midair.

“I cannot believe you!” Rarity orbited slowly around the room. “Do you have any idea how stressful this has been for me? The anxiety? You could have prevented that!”

“You know I won’t tell you things like this,” Twilight said. “You know I can’t.”

“You certainly could!” Rarity felt the fight going out of herself somewhat, and Twilight seemed to recognize it, for she found herself gently floating back down to the floor.

“I couldn’t,” Twilight said softly. “If I’d told you this, then we could never have known for sure if it was only happening because I told you it was supposed to happen. You had to choose. You had to make the leap.”

“Hmph! I still think you made this needlessly difficult for me.”

“This has been difficult for me too, you know! Stars, it’s been hard to not leak this one. Very… very hard.” She stretched and made a relieved noise. “One less big secret to keep on my end, though. That’s quite the load off.”

Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Yes. I suppose I can see that. I suppose—” She paused as a memory came back to her. “That’s why…” she said.

Twilight blinked. “What’s why?”

“Your first visit. Your first trip here. You visited all the others… and saved me for last… and when you… laid eyes on me…”

Rarity watched the much older version of her brand-new marefriend blush and break eye contact.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she said with a sly grin. “Are you still in love with me?”

The Princess of Friendship, staunch defender of Equestria and nearing a millennium old, stammered awkwardly.

“Twilight,” Rarity said, her grin fading. “Truly? Even now? There’s been no one else?”

She shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? They broke the mold when they made you.”

“Well, yes, quite so, but even still… I’m… I’m flattered, I suppose. Goodness. A love for the ages, are we?”

“I thought so,” Twilight said quietly.

“No pressure, then.” Just a hint of anxiety colored her voice.

Twilight’s eyes found hers and she spoke seriously. “There is no pressure. It isn’t a destiny you need to live up to, it’s a foregone conclusion. Just do whatever feels natural to you in the moment, and everything will work out fine.”

Rarity nodded slowly. “Everything will work out fine.”

Rarity hummed as she bustled about her kitchen. She had decided to surprise Princess Twilight with a home-cooked meal, and to save herself from fiddling with the journal in the middle of plating her famous mushroom spaghetti with marinara and garlic bread, she’d prefilled it before she started cooking. Twilight should be here just about—

There was an echoing pop in the foyer. Twilight had been getting better at her time-travel spell, so her re-entry was getting more efficient, but that sounded louder than Rarity expected these days. She turned and almost dropped her ladle.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was standing in her foyer, staring at… Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“What are you doing here?” said Princesses Twilight Sparkle.

“Oh, I remember this time,” said the one on the left.

“What are you talking about?” said the one on the right.

“I’ve been wondering when this would happen.”

“We forgot to mark off one of the visits in the journal, didn’t we.”

“Must have. I thought the date looked familiar…”

In unison, they looked each other up and down. In unison, they nodded. In unison, they lifted a hoof, reaching for the other…

Rarity cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

In unison, Princesses Twilight Sparkle paused and turned to look at her.

“You’re certain that it’s safe to touch one another? The universe won’t, I don’t know, self-annihilate when identical atoms come into contact with themselves?”

Princesses Twilight Sparkle returned their focus to each other, then each other’s hoof. “Probably not,” they said.

“Still, perhaps just in case it would be better to not?” They looked reluctant and Rarity rolled her eyes. “At least do it on your own time. Preferably far in the future. Away from my boutique.”

Begrudgingly, the princesses dropped their hooves.

“Now, will one of you be returning home, or shall I set an extra place? I believe I have enough for a third serving…”

“Best not,” said the one on the right.

“I knew you were going to say that,” said the one on the left.

“Yes, obviously. Are you going to go, then? You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who forgot to check off this visit, you did!”

“Which also means you did.”

“Yes but you forgot more recently.”

“Oh, get out of here.”

The Princess Twilight Sparkle on the left grinned, waved, and disappeared.

“That was something,” Rarity said.

“I bet she thought she was so clever, trying to double dip on a home-cooked meal,” Twilight said. “That smells very good.”

Rarity beamed. “I should hope so! It is, of course, delicious. Come, come, sit.”

They sat and Rarity slid two steaming bowls of pasta onto the table. “It looks very good too,” Twilight said.

“But of course. Presentation is key.”

They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, Twilight making appreciative noises with every bite.

“It’s a shame,” Rarity said.

“Hmm?” Twilight mumbled.

“Why, if she’d stayed,” Rarity winked and took a sip of her wine, “just imagine what I could get up to with two of you.”

Twilight choked on her spaghetti.

“Goodbye, dear!” Rarity called, waving to her wife. “Have a safe trip!”

Twilight Sparkle waved back as she flew away. Rarity wondered how long it would take her to get used to having wings. It had been years now but she still walked almost everywhere, out of habit. She probably would have today if she hadn’t been running late.

Rarity shut the door and immediately went upstairs and scribbled an entry in the journal. When she came back down, Twilight was setting up the Go board in her sitting room.

“Fancy running into you here,” Rarity said as she dropped onto her chaise longue.

“Indeed,” Twilight said as she organized the black and white stones into clean rows before each of them. “How’s your day going?”

“Fine, fine. Just bade you farewell on another of your diplomatic missions. My big important princess.”

Twilight snorted and selected her first stone. “I hated going on those. Well, not hated. Obviously I missed my friends, and my wife,” she said with a furtive glance across the board that Rarity politely chose to ignore, “and I didn’t like being away from home so much, but I did enjoy the work itself most of the time. It felt like it really… mattered, you know?”

“Of course it did,” Rarity said as she played her first stone. “It felt that way because it did really matter. It was important!”

“You know,” Twilight said, snapping her next stone down, “I can’t remember if I ever said this at the time, but I really appreciated how supportive you were about me having to go off all the time and leave you here alone.”

“It was nothing, dear.” Rarity played her next stone, and then Twilight hers, and they went back and forth several times while Rarity watched Twilight with a little grin.

Halfway to placing her next stone on the board, Twilight sat bolt upright, her eyes snapping to Rarity and her jaw dropping open.

“There it is,” Rarity said.

“You were never alone!” Twilight almost shouted, half accusing, half astounded. “Were you? Every time I left on one of those sunforsaken missions, you just trotted upstairs and invited me over and I showed right up!”

“Twilight, really,” Rarity said, leaning over to pat her cheek, “how else was I supposed to pass the time? Making dresses? Please. Why spend that time alone when I could spend it with my very good friend, Twilight Sparkle?”

She leaned back in her seat and contented herself with watching Twilight sputter quietly to herself for a moment before flashing her most winning smile.

“Ahem. Your turn, I believe.”

Twilight stood at the door to the boutique, her hoof on the handle. “You’re sure you’re feeling all right?” As an alicorn princess, Twilight Sparkle did not grow ill and, possibly, did not age.

Rarity was not an alicorn princess.

“I will be fine, darling,” Rarity lied. “As an old friend of ours used to say, this is not my first rodeo. You go off to your diplomatic function and I shall hold down the fort here at home.”

Relief and reluctance warred on Twilight’s face. “You’ve taken your medication?”

“And done my morning exercises. You mustn’t worry so,” Rarity said. Because you’re not supposed to stay here this weekend. She put on her most charming smile. “You have important work to do, and I will be just fine.”

Twilight bit her lip. “You’re sure?”

Rarity nodded solemnly. “I am sure.”

Twilight turned to face the door as though she was finally about to leave, then spun back and cantered over to sweep Rarity up into a hug. “Okay. If you say so. I love you, Rarity.”

Rarity giggled and hugged her back. “I love you too, my beloved Twilight.”

With utmost care, Twilight set her back down, then bent to give her one last kiss goodbye. Rarity let her eyes drift shut and savored it for a moment, before pushing her wife away. “Go! You’re going to be late for your train.”

“The thing about being a princess on the way to an important diplomatic function is,” Twilight said with a lopsided grin, “the train waits for me.” She sighed. “But the conference won’t. I’ll be back tomorrow. Try not to have too much fun without me this weekend?”

“I shall do my level best,” Rarity assured her. “And don’t forget I’ve invited Cadance to visit on Monday so you have that to look forward to as well. Now go on!”

Twilight pouted, and Rarity had to chuckle at the image of an alicorn princess pouting at being ordered around by a mere mortal like her, and nodded. “Okay. And yes, that will be nice.”

I really rather suspect it won’t be.

They both walked to the door, and Twilight opened it, and bent to kiss Rarity one more time on the cheek, then turned and strode outside and launched herself smoothly into the air, heading for the train station.

She looked back over her shoulder and waved, and Rarity waved back, and kept waving until her Twilight had disappeared from sight, and then she stepped back and shut the door before leaning against it and breaking into tears.

To think, that had been their last goodbye. She would never see her Twilight again. The young one was on a train, leaving her, and the old one was even further away, off in the distant future. The young one would return tomorrow afternoon and find her wife’s body in bed, quiet and still. The old one would still be haunted by it.

She’d done what she could, there—Cadance would already be on her way, not knowing Rarity had arranged the visit so as to ensure Twilight had some small measure of extra support in the first days of processing her grief—but otherwise, that was that.

Rarity gathered herself, dried her tears, and headed upstairs.

It took quite a lot of alcohol to affect an alicorn, but Rarity had experience in these matters, and on one of the elder Twilight’s recent visits, she had plied the ancient alicorn with spirits in a volume carefully calibrated to make her most suggestible.

Delicately, ever so delicately, she had extracted a few vital items of foreknowledge that she was tired of insisting she was ready to know.

Most importantly, the date and manner of her death: tomorrow, and old age. She had always thought that “old age” was just what the coroner wrote when they couldn’t be bothered to do a proper examination on a senior pony who’d given up the ghost, but as the time drew nearer she’d reconsidered.

She was, objectively speaking, healthy for a unicorn mare of her advanced age, yet she couldn’t help but acknowledge a weakness growing in her bones, sneaking up on her, sapping her spirit. Perhaps she really was just too old.

Twilight had always refused to share the details of Rarity’s death with her out of fear she would spiral and hyperfocus on it, but on the contrary: receiving confirmation that she was in fact dying and wasn’t imagining things had been a huge load off her mind. She felt free and content, and grateful to know exactly how much time she had left. She used it to quietly get her affairs in order, write letters to ponies important to her she couldn’t visit in person, and spend as much time as possible with Twilight. Both of them.

In the course of convincing an inebriated Twilight of the future to talk about her death, Rarity had also found out a few ancillary details: she died alone at home in their bed, and Twilight still had not managed to forgive herself for missing it.

That regret, overflowing in Twilight’s heart, had dashed any hope Rarity had that the Twilight of the future would use her time travel spell to come… see her off, as it were. She would not still be so upset with herself thousands of years hence otherwise. Rarity truly was going to die alone, and she had made her peace with it.

And then, a week ago, when she’d been inviting the Twilight of the future to what she supposed might be their last visit, she’d turned the page—the last page in the journal; conveniently enough it had contained just enough room for every visit in her lifetime—and discovered something new, written on the inside of the back cover in violet ink:

A date, a depth, and directions.

Today’s date.

Rarity opened the bottom dresser drawer, extracted the enchanted journal in its enchanted box from its hiding place, and slid it into her waiting saddlebags, which she had packed last night while Twilight had been distracted preparing for her keynote speech at this weekend’s event.

Cinching them to her body, she made her way back downstairs and out the door, and set off in the direction of the Everfree Forest.

Perhaps an hour later, a bit after noon, she came upon an empty clearing and inspected it carefully. She had copied the directions from the back of the journal to a spare leaf of paper for easy reference, and she was confident she had followed them correctly. Besides, if she hadn’t, Twilight would never have found the journal in the future and none of this would have happened anyway.

The directions ended at a boulder on the other side of the clearing, jutting out from the ground at an oblique angle. She picked her way across the open ground to it, then lit her horn and carefully began excavating the soil below the leeward side of the boulder.

Ten feet, the journal had said.

She was sweating more than she would have liked by the time she reached that depth, and took a break to drink from a canteen she pulled from her saddlebags, and to rest amongst the mounds of dirt she’d created. If only Applejack could see her getting her hooves dirty now!

Finally, she felt up to standing again, and drew the enchanted box out. She stood at the edge of the hole she’d created and flipped the box open, and took one last look at the journal she’d been writing in and thinking about for almost eighty years.

Giving in to a sudden urge, she bent and pressed her lips to the front cover, then shut and sealed the box and floated it down to the bottom of the hole. With a sigh, she began transferring the loose dirt back into the hole, tamping it down securely as she went.

Dropping soil into a hole took less effort than dragging it out, but she was still spent by the time the hole was filled in. She took another break to rest and rehydrate herself, then packed up her bags and began the long trek back to the boutique, looking forward to nothing more than a long, hot shower and the comfort of her bed.

When she arrived, now in the late afternoon, she felt thoroughly drained. No wonder this is my last day, she thought to herself. She’d barely even managed a jaunt into the Everfree. Why, in her youth she would have thought nothing of galloping there and back.

Wasted on the young, she supposed.

She dropped her saddlebags inside the front door, and made her way into the kitchen on shaky legs. A snack and a drink before her shower, she thought. A tall glass of cool water and an apple or two sounded heavenly. Not that the apples were as good as the ones from her youth, though Applejack’s daughter was no slouch and very nearly managed to keep up her mother’s and great-grandmother’s standards of excellence.

The refreshments and break in the kitchen restored much of her strength, and her legs did not shake as she climbed her stairs for what she knew was likely the last time. Yes, a shower and then bed, she thought. Lovely.

She took her time in the bathroom, luxuriating in the shower, sitting at her vanity and applying her favorite face cream, lightly oiling her hooves. She almost felt like a new mare, except of course she was a very old mare. It only took a glance in the mirror to remind her of that.

She’d had a good life. It almost felt like she’d had two lives, a hoof in the present and a hoof in the future. She hoped she’d done a suitable job keeping the two separated.

Too late now, at any rate.

She put out the lights in the bathroom and returned to her darkened bedroom. She’d left a lone lamp burning on her nightstand to guide her way now.

I so would have liked to see Twilight again, one last time, before…

Ah, well.

The Blessings of Old Friends

A crack rent the still air deep within the Everfree Forest, sending startled birds crying into the sky, and Twilight Sparkle stood in what had been an empty clearing but a moment ago.

As her magic faded, dissipating into the ether, she surveyed her surroundings, not just with her eyes but with other senses as well, and was satisfied—and a touch relieved—to find herself alone. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, taking a brief moment to savor the Everfree and her success.

She was here. She had done it. And no one would witness what came next.

With a flick of her horn, she drew items from the satchel slung between her wings: a common traveler’s cloak and a notebook. The cloak was sized to fit a more modest mare, much too small for a fully grown alicorn’s frame. She draped it over a convenient boulder jutting out from the ground at an oblique angle and turned to the notebook.

She paged past the inscription on the inside front cover—for my beloved Twilight—and found the notes she was looking for. Pointless, perhaps, as she’d practiced this particular spell in private back home enough times that she should be able to cast and maintain it with barely a conscious thought, but reviewing the mana matrices now that the time had come felt reassuring.

Her eyes fell shut as she concentrated, and when she opened them again the cloak fit her perfectly.

It had rained recently, and she leaned over a puddle to survey the reflection of her handiwork.

Completely unrecognizable. A bland beige earth pony mare looked back up at her, with brown eyes and brown mane. Wearing the dull gray cloak made her not just unrecognizable but completely forgettable: a passerby with no distinguishing features to draw attention or linger in an observer’s memory.

She smiled, tucked her notebook away, and set off into the forest.

Fluttershy’s cottage lay just beyond the border of the Everfree, and for the first time Twilight wondered if she was making a mistake.

Standing in the shadows of the trees and looking out at the cozy homestead, she very nearly couldn’t believe her eyes. It was exactly as she remembered it. Maybe that’s all it should remain—a memory. Maybe it was a mistake to try and experience this again.

She stepped out of the trees and walked up the pathway to the front door. She could hear movement inside. The murmur of a voice. She knocked.

The voice died in an instant and she stifled a smile. A few hesitant hoofsteps later and the door opened a crack, revealing a luminous teal eye half-hidden behind a cascade of pink mane.

Twilight let the smile return, a full, kind, disarming smile, and spoke: “Hello! I’m so sorry to bother you, but I wanted to ask if I’m in the right place. Is this the way to Ponyville?”

Her voice was not her own. It was the voice of a bland, beige earth pony with brown eyes and brown mane. Completely friendly and completely uninteresting.

The door opened a little wider. “Oh? Oh. Um, yes, you’re very near Ponyville.” Twilight could see both eyes now, and watched as they looked her up and down, taking her in. “Have you traveled far?”

Twilight grinned. “You have no idea.”

Fluttershy carefully placed the tea set on the low table before the sofa and reached for the sugar.

“You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Twilight said.

“It’s no trouble,” Fluttershy said. “Goodness knows when I’ve been on a long journey I appreciate a chance to rest my weary hooves. One lump or two?”

“Just one, please.”

“Cream?”

“No, thank you.”

They sipped their tea and Twilight looked around, drinking Fluttershy’s sitting room in more deeply than the darjeeling.

There really was no better word for it than cozy, and no sooner did she have the thought than a profound wave of homesickness crashed over her, catching her completely unawares, and she set her teacup and saucer down on the table with a loud clink.

Fluttershy’s eyes darted to her over her own teacup. “Wheatgerm? Are you all right?”

“I—” Twilight swallowed and took a deep breath. “Yes. For a moment there—” She pivoted. “Well, you’ve been so kind to me despite me being a stranger fresh off the road, and it’s been quite a long time since anyone’s shown me such kindness.”

Fluttershy set her own teacup and saucer down, more gently. “That’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear that’s been your experience. Kindness really is free, after all, and I wish more ponies would see that and practice it.” She looked surprised then. “You know, you say we’re strangers but I feel so comfortable talking with you. I feel almost as though I’ve known you for years. Isn’t that strange?”

They looked at each other, a contented smile on Fluttershy’s face, an inquisitive one on Twilight’s. She can’t possibly know, can she? Twilight searched her friend’s eyes. Angel Bunny peered at her suspiciously from over Fluttershy’s shoulder.

Fluttershy shrugged and picked her tea back up. “Oh well. Whatever it is, you seem like a very nice pony, and I’m so glad you happened to knock on my door this afternoon.”

Twilight smiled back at her and reached for her own tea. “So am I.”

At length, Twilight made her excuses and Fluttershy saw her to the door. “You’re welcome back any time, you know. If you should ever visit Ponyville again.” They both looked down and watched Angel Bunny creep forward, sniff Twilight’s leg, then stare up at her mistrustfully before retreating to the safety of Fluttershy’s long flowing tail. “He’d probably warm up to you. Eventually.”

Privately, Twilight wondered if that were so. It wouldn’t surprise her if her glamour, advanced as it was, couldn’t quite fool all animal senses.

“I truly appreciate your hospitality, Fluttershy.” Her breath caught in her throat then, just for a moment. “More than you could know.”

She watched Fluttershy misunderstand the hitch in her voice and allowed the misunderstanding to happen. “You poor dear. I’m sure you’ll encounter more kindness in your journeys.” The pegasus reached out and drew her into a hug.

None like yours, Twilight thought, pressing her face into her friend’s mane.

Fluttershy had given her directions into town, and Twilight had dutifully pretended like she’d almost known the way but been just a little unsure about the finer points of the route.

As soon as she was out of sight of the cottage, though, she broke into a detour, looping south around the town’s outskirts. She replayed her time with Fluttershy in her mind’s eye.

The experience had ended, and was already just a memory. Had there been a point to it in the end, really? Now it was just one more memory, alongside all the others she already had of her kindest friend.

Yes, she decided as she approached a fenceline guarding the best apple trees this side of Canterlot. It had been worth it.

She didn’t need to knock on the door this time. Her friend was outside, inspecting the apple trees. When she cleared her throat, her friend turned to inspect her instead.

“Hello,” Twilight said, and decided the simplest thing to do was reuse a tried and true gambit. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but is this the way to Ponyville?”

Applejack looked her up and down, then squinted off into the distance and pushed her hat up on her forehead. “Well, you’re mighty close. Must have taken a wrong turn back at Sugar Creek Junction is all. But if you were to turn yourself around and head right back the way you came, then hang a left at the big tree stump and cross the footbridge, you’ll find yourself right smack dab in the middle o’ Ponyville in just a few minutes.”

She smiled and nodded at Twilight, who smiled and nodded back. “Thank you very much for your help, Miss…?”

“Oh, where are my manners? Name’s Applejack.” She stepped forward and held out a hoof. “Pleased ta meetcha.”

Twilight shook it. “Wheatgerm.” She half-turned and surveyed the orchard. “Your trees are lovely.”

The farmpony beamed. “They surely are. These here are the finest apple trees this side of Canterlot. My pride and joy, if’n you must know. I tell you what, Wheatgerm, when was the last time you had a good apple? I mean a real, honest-to-sunshine apple?”

“It feels like it’s been a lifetime.”

“You’re darn tootin’ it does, because it has been, because I’d wager you’ve never had an Apple family apple.” Applejack squinted up into the closest tree, turned and backed up to it, then reared and bucked, and the impact against the trunk dislodged a single ruby-red apple. She caught it in her hat and offered it to Twilight. “On the house.”

Twilight carefully reached in, her hoof brushing against the rough, sweat-stained material of her friend’s beloved hat, and took out the apple.

It was perfect, just as in her memory.

She took a bite.

Perfect.

Applejack looked on, nodding approvingly. “I could ask you to give it the compliment it’s due but there’s no need. I can see the compliment right on your face.”

Twilight sniffed, and took another bite.

Approval became mild alarm. “Ah, Wheatgerm? Are you—”

Twilight shut her eyes and took another bite as a tear escaped and trailed gently down her cheek. She chewed, and savored, and swallowed.

“Wheatgerm, honey, I… look, I know I was talkin’ them up, I know they’re real good, but I don’t know that they’re worth all that. Are you all right?”

The last bite. She chewed and swallowed and it was gone. She opened her eyes and looked at the apple core perched on her hoof, and beyond, where Applejack worried at her hat.

“Wheatgerm?”

Twilight swallowed again and looked up. “Thank you, Applejack. You were right. That was a very good apple.” She smiled, and Applejack smiled back uncertainly.

“What can I say, they don’t grow them like they used ta anywhere else.”

“They really don’t,” Twilight agreed.

She paused only briefly at the big stump, to eat the second apple Applejack had given her for the road, and to break down and sob.

Before crossing the footbridge she stopped to wash her face in the creek. It was slow moving, but fast enough to distort her reflection. As the water dripped from her face, she looked down at the beige and brown shape rippling below her, then shook herself and turned to walk into town.

Here, too, was just as she remembered. Thatched roofs, pink trim, nearly all earth ponies with a smattering of unicorns and pegasi. Fillies and colts playing in the park. A bright pink mare hanging directly in front of her—

She yelped and Pinkie Pie stood before her, smiling with her head cocked to the side. “Ohmigosh! You must be new here! I’m Pinkie Pie and this is Ponyville!”

Twilight tried to catch her breath enough to answer, but before she could Pinkie’s face changed. Her brow furrowed and she leaned closer.

“You’re new here… right?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes! Yes, I’m new here. I’m just a visitor from out of town. Just passing through.”

Pinkie Pie looked her up and down, her eyes slightly narrowed. “I… guess… that makes sense. Just passing through?”

Twilight gulped. Carefully, discreetly. So Pinkie couldn’t see. She hoped. “Yep! Just passing through.”

Pinkie Pie looked at her. Twilight felt sweat beading on the nape of her neck. Maybe this was the mistake. She should have known better than to push her lu—

“Aw, but that means I can’t throw you a party! I throw Welcome To Ponyville parties for all the new ponies here but only if they’re here here!” Pinkie Pie was suddenly hopping in a circle around Twilight, her mane bouncing like a pink balloon, and Twilight blinked reflexively. “Just passing through isn’t here here I don’t think! I’m pretty sure anyway! Maybe I should start throwing ponies just passing through Welcome To Ponyville If Only For A Brief Time parties! Hey, maybe that would convince them to stay longer so we could be frie—”

“Pinkie Pie!” shouted a voice from above. Pinkie froze in mid hop and looked up. Twilight did too. She recognized that voice.

“There you are. You just disappeared on me! How d’you do that, anyway?” Rainbow Dash said as she flared her wings to kill her velocity. She hovered next to them, shaking her head at Pinkie Pie.

“But Dashie! I had to come meet Wheatgerm!”

“Who?” Rainbow looked over and started when she made eye contact with Twilight, falling the last short distance to the ground and struggling to keep her balance. “Whoa, sorry, Wheat, didn’t see you there. You really kinda blend into the background, you know?”

Twilight grinned reluctantly. “I get that a lot.”

“Not really my style, but hey, if it works for you. Welcome to Ponyville? Or, uh, have you been here long and I’ve just never noticed you.” Rainbow managed to look contrite.

“Ah, no, as I was telling Pinkie—”

“Just passing through!” Pinkie Pie said.

“Phew, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Well hey, listen, Sweetberm, I was in the middle of practice and Pinkie Pie was watching me, so we’ve gotta get back to it.”

“Yeah! It’s super-duper fun. Hey! You could come watch too!” Pinkie was now hopping in circles around Rainbow Dash.

Twilight was positive that she needed to do absolutely everything possible to avoid spending even one more minute in Pinkie Pie’s presence.

“I appreciate the offer, but I really should get going. It was nice to meet you both.”

Pinkie Pie was eyeing her speculatively again. Twilight felt sweat prickling the nape of her neck again. She offered Pinkie a brief smile before focusing on Rainbow Dash. The sun was really beating down hard on her mane.

Rainbow, oblivious, said, “Yeah, whatever. C’mon, Pinks, let’s go. I’m not gonna pull this off without my best cheerleader!”

Pinkie Pie finally tore her eyes away from Twilight to beam admiringly at Rainbow. “Okie dokie lokie! Nice to meet you…” She turned back to Twilight, the faintest air of puzzlement clouding her features. “...Wheatgerm.”

Twilight smiled, nodded, and bolted.

Rainbow watched her go. “What a weirdo.”

When Twilight stepped inside, her heart rate—still elevated from her close encounter with Pinkie Pie—immediately began to slow. A sense of peace and belonging fell over her, draped around her like the most luxurious blanket.

She was home.

The door to the library swung gently shut behind her, and she paused to soak it in. Light filtered down through the windows set high into the walls, rough-hewn from the gigantic oak tree Ponyville’s library occupied. Shelves upon shelves had been carved from those walls, and—blessedly—been filled to the brim with books.

There were larger libraries in the world. There were more specialized libraries in the world, libraries that contained the most arcane secrets and unimaginable knowledge, that relied on stasis spells and environmental control spells to protect the unique, one-of-a-kind tomes that lived there. She had visited them all. Founded a couple of them.

None of them held a candle to Golden Oak Library in Ponyville.

She moved forward and let her eyes rove the shelves, let her nose take in the wonderful faint mustiness that permeated the still air. She trailed a hoof over the spines, feeling each and every scuff and crease and embossing.

She reached a particular favorite and pulled it from the shelf and opened it and it fell open naturally to a favorite passage, as though she had just been reading it yesterday, and she smiled.

“Spike? Spike!” she called. “Where are you?”

But she hadn’t spoken. Twilight closed her eyes and nodded to herself, and as she reached to place the book back on its shelf she walked into the room.

“Spike, I—oh! Hello! I’m sorry about that, I heard something and thought it was my assistant.”

Twilight finished reshelving her book and turned to face Twilight.

“I completely understand,” she said. “It’s no problem.”

“Welcome to the library,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met? I’d thought I’d met all the ponies here by now. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Twilight,” said Twilight. “And no, I’m just a traveler. Just passing through.”

“Ah, of course,” said Twilight, eyeing her cloak. “I should have guessed. Welcome to Ponyville! Can I help you find anything? Are you staying long? I haven’t had anyone from out of town try to check out a book yet,” she mused. “I’m not sure that’s allowed.”

Twilight raised a hoof. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I’m not staying here long enough to check anything out. I just wanted to stop in and see the library while I was here. I love libraries, don’t you?”

Twilight beamed and nodded. “Yes! Libraries are wonderful. I’ve only been here a few months, but I have to say…” She looked around the room. “I feel so extraordinarily lucky that I get to live here. My bedroom is right upstairs. A live-in librarian, isn’t that something? We didn’t have those in Canterlot.”

The alicorn disguised as an earth pony watched the unicorn take in her new home, eyes shining with joy and belonging, and her eyes welled up.

“I’m jealous,” she said, smiling and blinking the tears away before Twilight could notice them. “I’ve visited a lot of places and that’s a rare setup. You’re very lucky.”

“I am, aren’t I?” said Twilight. “I really am.” She smiled to herself, still looking around her home, and then a brief look of panic washed over her face and she snapped back to Twilight. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry! This has been very unprofessional of me.” She cleared her throat and straightened up. “So, not checking anything out, but can I help you find anything in particular while you’re here?”

“No,” said Twilight, shaking her head. “It’s been wonderful to spend a little time here, but I really should be moving on.” She headed for the door, but stopped as she drew abreast of Twilight. “Twilight?”

“Yes?”

“You really are lucky. Please don’t take it for granted.”

“I won’t,” Twilight said seriously. She blinked and looked at Twilight then, but Twilight was already at the door.

“Say hi to Spike for me,” Twilight said.

“Okay,” Twilight said, and as the door closed behind her Twilight caught sight of the frown crossing Twilight’s face as she turned to watch herself go.

One last stop to make.

Do What You Are Afraid To

Twilight stood and looked up at Carousel Boutique.

The other visits had gone well. Or, as well as could be expected. Perhaps better than she’d had any right to expect. Her glamour had held true, and she’d managed to keep herself under control well enough.

But she hesitated here. For the first time since setting out on this journey, she stopped and took stock of things, considered if it was safe to continue. If she was up for what came next.

She thought she was, so she continued.

The bell above the door jangled when she entered, and as she stepped forward and turned to take in the room, her gaze traveled over the dress forms and clothes hung neatly on racks and the central fitting platform.

Not quite home, but close.

She heard hoofsteps above her, delicate but firm. A brisk canter that reached the top of the staircase behind her and started coming down.

“Just a moment! I’ll be right there!”

Twilight smiled and turned to the staircase and when her eyes met Rarity’s her heart stopped.

She froze.

In a flash, a lone thought filled her mind, crystal clear:

I should never have come here.

She faltered.

But worse, her glamour, which had been humming along quietly, the spell matrix perfectly stable and steady, powered by her magical reserves with barely a conscious thought afforded to them, faltered too.

For a moment, just for a moment, the spell stuttered, and Rarity’s eyes widened in shock.

“What—what was that?” She took an involuntary step backward, staring at Twilight. “That—you—” She stopped, and stared.

Twilight found her voice, or at least the voice she was using today. “Hello!” she said. “I’m just passing through town and I heard you were the best fashion designer in the area—”

“Who are you?” Rarity said. Twilight blinked, and summoned up a placating smile. Rarity would never interrupt a potential customer. Not a good sign.

“My name is Wheatgerm,” Twilight said. “I’m—”

“No,” Rarity said. “Who are you?”

“As I said, my name is Wheatgerm. I’m—” But Rarity refused to let her get out her carefully constructed cover story.

“Perhaps I misspoke,” Rarity said crisply. “I will try again. What are you?”

“I—what?” Twilight floundered.

“What,” Rarity enunciated clearly, “are you. I saw that. Do not insult my intelligence or observational skills. When you entered my boutique you were a beige earth pony with brown eyes and brown mane, and then for a moment you were not. You were—” She blinked, and frowned, and shook her head. “You were something else. And then you were as you appear now once more.”

“Rarity, I—”

“You presume to call me by name?” Rarity drew herself up. “I have not given you my name, and you would do well to remember that, you fey creature. Why are you here? What are you doing?”

Twilight stared back at her in utter panic and said nothing.

Rarity nodded. “If you do not explain yourself,” she said calmly, “I shall scream. I can assure you that it will be heard as far as the town hall, and the amount of attention that you receive next will be most unwelcome.” She raised her chin. “So, I say again: who are you and what are you doing here?”

Twilight swallowed. Her mind rang hollow. She had made so many contingency plans, so many decision trees for this journey. All of them worthless, none of them relevant here.

“Okay. Please just—please just let me explain.”

Rarity lit her horn. “By all means. I am eager to hear it.”

Twilight nodded and licked her lips. Her mouth was dry as a Saddle Arabian desert. “I mean no harm to you or anypony else. I came here to—observe. I am a visitor to this time from what you… would consider the future.”

Rarity stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“I have traveled back in time to your era to—to see certain ponies and places. I disguised myself so as to not cause any ponies in the local timeframe alarm.” Twilight was sweating. Maybe she didn’t have to reveal everything. Maybe Rarity would see reason. Maybe she could—

Rarity barked a hard, sharp laugh, keeping her eyes locked on Twilight and her horn alight. “That is absolutely ridiculous. I do not—forgive me—believe a single word you have said. I have given you a chance, never let it be said I am not generous, and you have wasted it. I am going to scream now, and you are—”

“Wait!” Twilight said. “Wait,” she pleaded. Rarity paused. “I can… I can prove it to you.”

“You have five seconds,” Rarity said crisply.

“I’m going to remove my cloak,” Twilight said. She didn’t want the movement to spook a hex out of her challenger.

“Three seconds,” Rarity replied.

Twilight shrugged off her cloak, letting it puddle around her hooves. She concentrated, and as she unwove the glamour spell and her body resumed its natural shape and size in a blaze of light, she kneeled on the floor.

Rarity blinked. Her hornlight went out. “Twilight?”

Twilight looked at her, their eyes still level. “Yes.”

Rarity half laughed, a confused sound, and some of the tension drained out of her frame. “Darling, why did you—what a strange thing to do. Are Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie trying to teach you how to pull pranks? Because I must tell you, this one needed some work.”

“No,” Twilight said. “It’s not a prank. I told you I’m from the future, and I can prove it, and you don’t need to scream.”

“Twilight, really,” Rarity said, “what are you—”

Twilight stood up to her full height, her eyes never leaving Rarity’s face. Rarity blanched and stared up at her, and she looked down at the unicorn.

“Twi— Twilight,” Rarity whispered. “What are… what are you… are you…?”

Twilight spread her wings, and Rarity’s eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted dead away.

Twilight sat at the foot of Rarity’s bed. The memory of the last time she had been in this room intruded, and she pushed it away. She looked down at Rarity’s sleeping form.

After Rarity had passed out from shock, Twilight had locked the front door and flipped the sign in the window from “open” to “closed.” She had carefully carried Rarity upstairs and put her to bed, then done a quick pass of the boutique to ensure they were alone. No other pony was there. Opalescence was lounging on one of the upstairs windowsills, and she eyed Twilight briefly before going back to sleep.

Twilight had returned to the bedroom, and sat at the foot of Rarity’s bed, and thought. Motionless, for hours, as Rarity’s chest rose and fell and Twilight considered her situation.

It was hardly ideal, but all things considered it could be worse. She was confident she could convince Rarity to keep the events of the afternoon a secret. She’d had many long years of experience persuading Rarity to see things her way, and felt sure that preventing the destruction of the space-time continuum would form a compelling foundation for her arguments.

There was no reason that Rarity should ever learn anything more that might threaten anything.

Rarity stirred. Twilight’s focus snapped to her. She stretched, and in the process made an intensely cute squeaking noise; Twilight gritted her teeth and vowed to ignore it.

Her eyes opened, and she blinked slowly a few times, and her head turned and she looked up at Twilight.

Twilight forced a smile onto her face as she looked down.

“Twilight,” Rarity said.

“Rarity,” Twilight said.

After a moment, Rarity said, “You’re very tall.”

“I am,” Twilight allowed.

“That wasn’t a dream I had,” Rarity said.

“It wasn’t,” Twilight agreed.

“You are an alicorn,” Rarity said.

Twilight wordlessly spread her wings again. Rarity regarded them expressionlessly for a moment, and then Twilight folded them away.

“And you really are… Twilight,” Rarity said, with a touch of wonder in her voice.

“I really am,” Twilight said.

Rarity pushed herself up. “I need a drink.”

They sat in Rarity’s kitchen while she brewed tea. Rarity perched on a chair, and summoned up a floor cushion for Twilight.

She stared at Twilight long enough to make her uncomfortable. “What?”

“It really is you,” Rarity said, the wonder completely suffusing her voice. “I can tell. You really are Twilight Sparkle.” She blinked. “But… she’s still here too?”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “I’m from the future. The unicorn you know is in the library right now. I actually spoke with her earlier, before I came to see you.”

“You what?” Rarity sat upright, shocked. “You spoke to—yourself? She didn’t recognize you?”

“None of our friends did.”

“You visited everyone?”

“Well, just the Elements. It wasn’t meant to be a world tour or anything.”

Rarity considered this, and the kettle’s whistle gave her more time to collect her thoughts.

As she busied herself at the counter, Twilight watched. The brief scene of domesticity tugged at her heart, and she managed to tamp down the longing in her expression as Rarity turned around, levitating two teacups with their saucers.

“Still one lump?”

“Yes, thank you.”

They sipped.

Rarity set her teacup down. “I really don’t even know where to begin. This is so… strange. You’ve time traveled, like something out of a story! You’re an alicorn, like the princesses! Are you a princess?”

Twilight grimaced. “I’m not sure I should answer that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Rarity…” Twilight gave her a beseeching look. “Nopony should know too much about their own future. I’ve already horribly contaminated the timeline by revealing myself to you—by screwing this up. It’s bad enough that you know I’m here at all, and that at some point in the future I become an alicorn. I don’t want to make things even worse by giving you even more information about the future.”

“Well!” Rarity harrumphed and sat back in her chair, crossing her forelegs. “I never. My good friend Twilight Sparkle comes back from the future and then refuses to tell me anything about it. What am I supposed to do about this, hmm?”

Twilight grimaced. “Never tell anyone and take it to your grave?”

Rarity gave her a sharp look. “My grave, you say.”

Uh oh.

“Twilight, dear, exactly how old are you?”

Oh. Twilight weighed the question. Rarity already knew she was an alicorn, and was no fool. Alicorns had long lifespans. Surely putting a number on it wouldn’t really tell her anything she didn’t already know?

“I’m six hundred and thirty-seven.”

Rarity’s eyebrows went up. “Goodness. Really? I suppose, why not.”

“Six hundred and thirty-eight next month.”

“But your birthday isn’t until—oh. Yes. Of course. Well. In that case—you’ve attended my funeral?”

Oh. Back to that. Twilight had hoped she’d dodged this. She again considered the question. Rarity already knew she was mortal, so confirming she died sometime in the next few centuries again shouldn’t really constitute protected information. “Yes, I did. But not—well, yes. I attended your funeral.”

“It was fabulous, I trust?”

Twilight gave her a wry grin. “I think you’d be content with it.”

“Mmm. You know, I’ve always thought it was a shame I would never get to see it.”

“I know.”

Rarity narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “Yes, I suppose you would know, wouldn’t you. And the others?”

“I buried all our friends, yes.”

“And you came back to see us all again even though it’s been over five hundred years for you since we all passed away.”

“I—” Twilight swallowed. “Yes.”

Rarity gave her a piercing look. “I’ve never heard of anypony traveling through time like this. Not in real life. Is this some classified spell? Are ponies secretly traveling through time all the, well, time?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, not to my knowledge. I mean, there are classified time-travel spells, but they’re not well known and can only jump you back for about a minute. I wanted a proper visit.”

“I am supposed to believe that you invented a new class of time-travel spell for the purposes of this visit?”

“Well, I… Not from scratch. I built on those other ones…”

“Alone?”

“I mean… yes…”

“Twilight, darling, dearest. Are you… were we…” Rarity’s eyes filled with pity. “Did you go to all this trouble because…”

“Because you were my first, best friends and I’ve never met anypony since who could fill your shoes,” Twilight said bitterly. “The ‘Princess of Friendship’ and I don’t have any friends anymore.”

Rarity’s lips quirked. “So you are a princess, then?”

Twilight stared at her for a moment before bursting to her feet and shouting, “Oh, horseapples!” She began pacing back and forth, up and down the kitchen. “This all really was a mistake! What in Equestria was I thinking? This didn’t fix anything, it just made things worse! I really had to risk the safety of the entire space-time continuum just to see the only real friends I’ve ever made again? How patheti—”

“Twilight, Twilight!” Rarity had jumped up too but seemed reluctant to try to physically intercede. Twilight froze in place and stared at her. “I solemnly swear that I will never reveal any of this ever happened to anypony. Not even you, later. I will take this secret to my grave, I swear to you on our friendship.”

Twilight stood there, panting, slightly wild-eyed.

“These events all seem to be a surprise to you, yes? Which means I never told you they happened, yes? So you know I am a mare of my word.”

Twilight squinted as her breathing slowed. “I’m not sure that’s how time works.”

Rarity laughed. “Says the mare who risked killing time itself just to see us again.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily put it like that,” Twilight grumbled. “But you’re not necessarily wrong, either. I can’t believe I convinced myself this was a good idea.”

“Perhaps not your best idea, no, but we’re still here, and I promise you it will be okay.”

“Yes.” Twilight sighed and nodded. “Of course. I do trust you, Rarity.”

“Then try to relax a bit, will you? At least your secret’s out with me. No need for the cloak and dagger like with the others.”

Twilight considered this. “That’s… true. That’s something. I still have to be careful about what I say about the future, but at least I don’t have to worry about giving away who I am.”

“Indeed. Quite lucky for you that I saw through your disguise,” Rarity said with a smugness Twilight remembered fondly.

“You only saw through my disguise because my spell dropped out. Anyone would have seen through it. Literally!”

“Yes, and why was that? You managed to go the whole day seeing all our other friends. I suppose it was wearing out, running for too long?” Rarity mused.

“I suppose,” Twilight lied. “At any rate, as you say, at least I don’t have to keep it up any longer.”

Rarity beamed and returned to her chair at the kitchen table, Twilight following and standing across from her.

They each took a sip of their cooling tea, Rarity keeping hers floating before her, Twilight setting hers back down.

“Well,” Twilight said. “I think this has been sufficiently humiliating. Thank you for the tea, and for agreeing to protect the sanctity of the space-time continuum by never telling anyone else for the rest of your life about the time you had tea with me.” She smiled tightly. “I should be going.”

“Oh!” Rarity looked surprised, and stood back up herself. “Really? We’ve barely spoken! Wouldn’t you like to stay even just a bit longer?”

“I’ve already been in this time much longer than I planned. Than I ever should have been. I think I’ve done enough damage.” Twilight walked to the door and retrieved her satchel and cloak, stuffing the cloak back inside and fastening the satchel about herself. She turned back to Rarity to say her final goodbye.

Rarity was watching her from the kitchen with a hesitant look.

“What?” said Twilight.

“I was just wondering…” Rarity bit her lip. “What if you risked a bit more damage?”

Twilight blinked. “What?”

“Forgive my forwardness, but you seem very… lonely. As you say, you are the Princess of Friendship, but you have no friends in your time?” Twilight’s face flushed with shame. “I was thinking that you might… well, we’ve already been friends once. Would you like to be again?”

“I—what?” Twilight’s mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn’t possibly mean…

“I am already keeping the secret of this visit. I don’t see much difference in keeping the secret of one visit or… or many. Would you like to visit again? Would you like to be my friend?”

“Rarity, that would be… profoundly weird for you. Being friends with two of me at once? Never being able to reveal a friendship to anyone else? I can’t ask that of you.”

“It would be profoundly weird, yes,” Rarity agreed. “But you are not asking it of me—I am offering it. I have enjoyed being friends with Twilight Sparkle the unicorn. I believe I would also enjoy being friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle the alicorn, if you’ll have me.”

“I… I don’t… that’s…” Twilight swallowed and drew herself up to her full height. “I can’t, I’m sorry. Goodbye. Thank you.”

Before Rarity could say a word, Twilight lit her horn and split the fabric of the universe and was gone.

Six hundred and fourteen years later, she collapsed sobbing on the floor of her chambers.

The Depth of Life

“Rarity! I’m home!” Twilight called, trotting inside Carousel Boutique. She’d had to unlock the door herself, unusual in the late afternoon, even on a Sunday. Rarity generally didn’t lock up until she went to bed for the night.

Twilight dropped her bags by the door and stretched her long neck, cracking several vertebrae in turn, and sighed with relief. It was good to be home.

She glanced into the kitchen and the sitting room. Both empty. No lamps lit. Silence. Hmm.

She must be upstairs—or had she gone out, not expecting Twilight back until later? They had made good time, and that would explain the locked boutique.

“Rarity, you up there?” She trotted upstairs, her hoofsteps echoing hollowly.

The second floor was as silent as the first.

She looked in Rarity’s workroom, and the guest bedroom. Both empty. No lamps lit.

The darkened hallway stretched a long way in front of her.

She reached the door to the bedroom and slowly pushed it open.

No lamps lit. Shades drawn.

“Rarity?”

Silence.

What little light spilled in from behind her, from the window facing the setting sun at the end of the hall, illuminated a shape in the bed.

Small. Motionless.

Twilight’s heart stopped.

I should never have left here.

A crack rent the still air deep within the Everfree Forest, sending startled birds crying into the sky, and Twilight Sparkle stood in what had been an empty clearing but a moment ago.

She surveyed her surroundings, recognizing them despite not setting foot here for over six months—or six hundred years—and wondered again if this would actually work. And, again, if the whole idea wasn’t insane and shouldn’t be abandoned anyway.

She’d only visited Rarity twice in the past so far. She could end it now. Minimize the damage.

If she didn’t find what she was looking for, perhaps that’s exactly what happened.

But she reached out with her senses and there, some ten feet below the surface, to the leeward side of a boulder jutting out of the ground at an oblique angle she’d once laid her cloak upon, she felt it, and her heart quickened.

It was the work of mere minutes to raise the box to the surface. She looked at it in wonder. Was this really happening?

After a quick sweep to remove the loose soil clinging to the box, she opened it and peered inside.

A journal, nestled in a padded purple velvet interior.

Twilight set the box down and lifted out the journal and opened it to the first page, telling herself to not get her hopes up, that there would probably only be a few dates and times listed there.

The lined page was completely filled in. She blinked.

So was the next page, and the next. She flipped through the entire journal, her heart racing.

Every page was filled with dates and times, and little notes, and even the occasional doodle. Eighty years’ worth of dates and times.

Eighty years’ worth of visits to her first and only love, centuries after she’d left her alone to die.

She hugged the journal to her chest and sobbed.

Twilight arrived with a pop in the boutique and was almost immediately bowled over by a very affectionate Rarity.

“Uhhh… hi?” she managed from her supine position on the floor.

“Twilight, darling, dearest, sweetheart, I’m so glad you came!” said Rarity from atop her.

“Of course I came—you wrote this date and time in the journal. I always come. I had wondered why this entry had so many smiley faces…”

She looked from Rarity, blinking languidly down at her with a smitten smile on her face, to her kitchen counter, where a nearly empty wine glass stood next to a nearly empty wine bottle.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

Rarity instantly looked affronted. “I am not!”

Twilight smirked. “Yes, you are.”

Rarity fumed briefly before collapsing against her and mumbling into her chest, “Okay I might be a little drunk.” She rolled off the alicorn and laid a hoof across her forehead. “But it’s not my fault! You must believe me, Twilight, you must. You must!”

Twilight rolled over as well, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “Why is it not your fault?”

Rarity blinked at her, confusion settling across her features. “What was I saying?”

“About how it’s not your fault you’re drunk.”

“Yes indeed!” Rarity cried. “It is in fact your fault if you must know!” She prodded Twilight’s chest.

“My fault?” Twilight laughed. “I just got here and you were already drunk!”

“Not you you, now you! Current you. My you!” Rarity sniffled.

Panic swept through Twilight. “What do you mean? What did I do?” She racked her brain. She didn’t remember anything unusual about this date.

Rarity sniffled again. “You… you… you went to spend the evening with Rainbow Dash instead of me. To read your books about that, that adventurer mare.”

Twilight blinked. “You… you’re drunk because I wanted to read?”

“Yes! And I was so distraught I came back here, quite alone, and opened a bottle of my favorite merlot so that I might sip it romantically as I think about all the ways I love you so very much despite choosing an evening of books and Rainbow over an evening with your wonderful marefriend and unfortunately there are so many ways in which I love you so very much that I just, er,” Rarity hiccuped, “kept sipping and here we are.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Rarity’s eyes ever so slightly began to cross.

“I see, yes.” Twilight thought for a moment. “And, er, after you started drinking, you went and got the journal and—ah, yes, there it is.” She spotted it sitting on the kitchen table. “I suppose the writing was rather unsteady as well…”

She turned back to Rarity and was startled to discover her very close. Much closer than Twilight expected. Their snouts were nearly touching.

She could practically taste the merlot.

“Twilight…” Rarity licked her lips.

Panic coursed through her again. “R-Rarity?”

Rarity let her half lidded eyes fall shut and leaned in. Twilight spun to the side, narrowly dodging the kiss, and managed to grab Rarity before she could topple face-first onto the floor.

“Rarity! What are you doing?”

Rarity squirmed around in her forelegs and reached up for her. “I am trying to make out with my marefriend, what does it look like I’m doing?”

Twilight held her at bay, which was more difficult than she expected—Rarity really wanted to kiss her. “But I’m not your marefriend! The other me is. The me of this time period.”

Rarity pouted. “But she’s you. Or you’re her. Just later on. So kiss me.” She stretched herself up toward Twilight. “Kiss me, you fool!”

Twilight planted a hoof on Rarity’s mouth. “Rarity! No. We’re not going to do anything. That’s… that’s too much. Too weird. You need to save that for past me. You and I—me me, the me visiting you from the future—are just friends, right? Purely platonic! No kissing or anything else.”

Rarity whined from behind her hoof.

“Do you really want to wake up in the morning having made out with a Twilight hundreds of years old? Do you really want to face your marefriend—your actual marefriend, the Twilight that’s currently reading books with Rainbow Dash—tomorrow, knowing that you spent the night before making out with another her?”

Rarity paused, and Twilight could tell she was pouting, and finally she shook her head.

“That would be creepy and gross, wouldn’t it.”

Slowly, Rarity nodded, and Twilight took her hoof away.

“Purely platonic,” she said. “You are right, of course. I just… got a little overexcited.”

“That’s okay,” Twilight said.

“I think… I think I need to go to bed,” Rarity said, with all the gravity of a statesmare making a keynote address at a national summit.

“I think you need to drink a glass of water first, but otherwise that’s an excellent idea. Come on, let’s get you squared away.”

The next morning found Twilight sitting at Rarity’s kitchen table, across from the bedraggled mess that was Rarity. She had felt compelled to come back to check on her, despite the lack of matching journal entry.

Possibly there had been no journal entry because Rarity was in no condition to hold a quill.

“So it’s agreed then.” Rarity’s voice was like boulders being ground into gravel. “We shall never speak of this again. In any timeline.”

Twilight nodded.

Twilight sat at her desk in her chambers, Rarity’s journal open before her.

It was like a catalog, she mused, idly flipping through the pages. What sort of Rarity was she in the mood for? A happy Rarity, someone she could forget her present-day troubles with, or even lean on if she herself was feeling down? A sad Rarity, someone she could comfort? A brief Rarity, someone she could drop in on for a half-hour pick-me-up? A long Rarity, someone she could while away a day or weekend with?

Many of the Raritys contained therein were no longer on offer. All the times she’d already visited had a single line neatly drawn through them, except for one memorable time on page thirty-four.

Twilight didn’t care for the fact that there were now more entries crossed out than there were still available. Some pages had just a few crossed out, but some pages were completely struck through. It had only been, what, a millennium or two? She needed to ration the visits more carefully, stretch her time out between them longer, as long as she could stand.

She didn’t know what she’d do when she was down to the last few.

She could, she supposed, go off-menu. There were a few dates and times that didn’t appear in the journal, dates and times burned into her memory, that she wouldn’t mind revisiting. Sure, Rarity hadn’t written them down, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was unwelcome. Perhaps Rarity assumed that she would come along regardless. On the other hoof, Rarity didn’t even have to know she was there. Wheatgerm could visit and hang back.

Sometimes she felt as though she was just killing time in between visits to Rarity. She knew that was unhealthy. She’d have to keep working on it.

Twilight sighed and shut the journal, returning it to the secret compartment in her desk. Not today. She wanted to see Rarity, of course, but she didn’t need to see her this moment.

She could wait a little longer.

They trotted together along the riverbank, looking for an ideal place to lay out their picnic blanket.

Twilight had come back far this visit. It had only been a few months, local time, since she had first come back from the future. She’d wanted another taste of that youthful innocence, of feeling like anything was possible.

She knew the old saying, that a pony couldn’t go home again. But, in her case?

She essentially could. On a limited basis, anyway.

“Aha!” Rarity said. “I think this is a rather perfect spot, don’t you?”

Twilight took a brief look around and nodded, smiling. It was a typically Ponyvillian landscape—soft grass, burbling water, cozy trees, with the buildings of the town proper off in the distance. A few other ponies had had the same idea and were curled up in the shade of a tree or wading in the shallows, enjoying the beautiful day.

Rarity unfolded their red-and-white checked blanket with her magic, draping it gracefully across the ground, and Twilight began unpacking their lunch with her hooves, since Wheatgerm did not appear to have a horn.

They settled in, munching on fruit and cheese and sandwiches. Rarity caught Twilight up on the comings and goings in Ponyville; Twilight caught Rarity up on future palace drama.

“And then—” Twilight paused as a shadow fell over her. She saw Rarity’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Twilight!” Rarity said, looking over her. Twilight craned her neck around only to find—herself.

“Hello, Rarity,” Twilight said cheerfully. “I don’t mean to interrupt you and your friend. I was just passing by and spotted you and thought I’d say hi.”

“Why yes, of course!” Rarity said, only the barest hint of anxiety in her voice. Twilight suspected that no one else would have identified it as such—no one else had decades of experience picking up on even the slightest nuance in her tone and body language.

No matter the circumstances, Rarity’s need for good manners reigned, and she gestured at Twilight with a hoof. “Twilight, this is my friend, ah, Wheatgerm. Wheatie, this is my other friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight turned and nodded to Twilight. “It’s good to meet you, Wheatgerm.”

“You as well.” Twilight managed to restrain a smirk. Her disguise was so effective at being unmemorable that it had even worked on her. She didn’t remember herself from her visit to the library! She was so distracted by satisfaction over her own spellwork that she barely registered continuing on autopilot: “Would you care to join us?”

Twilight—both of them—blinked in surprise. Why in Equestria had she said that?

“Oh!” Twilight said. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense,” Twilight said, silently panicking. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Rarity giving her a completely bewildered look, and she didn’t blame her one bit.

“I… yes?” Rarity said. “Do join us?”

“Oh, well,” Twilight glanced over her shoulder toward the town, “I do need to get back soon—who knows what Spike will get up to if I’m away for too long—but I suppose a brief chat couldn’t hurt, if it’s really all right.”

“Of course,” Rarity said, glancing at Twilight, and they made room for Twilight on the blanket. “So, what are you up to today, dear?”

“Nothing too exciting,” Twilight said. “I’ve been conducting a chromaticity study of the local flora.”

“And why would that not be exciting, hmm? Do tell us all about it!”

Twilight looked uncertainly between Rarity and Twilight. “You really want to know?”

“But of course!” Rarity said. Twilight nodded and gestured for Twilight to go on.

“Well,” Twilight said, “I noticed that there are certain species of magnoliophyta here that I’m not familiar with, possibly native to this region, not extant in the Canter Mountains, and in particular I thought some of their colors were unusual. So I started performing weekly surveys of a square mile of land centered on…”

Twilight remembered this little project. It had given her a way to pass the time as she’d assimilated into Ponyville more closely, and anyway she liked looking at flowers.

She also remembered, if she strained a little, this conversation. Talking with Rarity at a picnic in the park, and only now did she vaguely recall another faceless, nameless pony present, fuzzy and ill-defined in her memory. Fascinating.

She definitely recalled the sudden twinge of hope she’d felt deep within her chest when she started explaining one of her silly hobbies and was not only not teased for a niche interest, but encouraged to share, to go into detail.

Welcomed.

She watched herself talk for a moment, nodding along whenever Twilight looked back at her, but eventually her gaze wandered over to Rarity, and she suppressed a surprised grin at what she found.

Rarity was watching Twilight with the most rapt attention. She seemed to have completely forgotten Twilight was there, something that—despite her powerful glamour—had never happened in all the times Twilight had visited her, until now or in the future. Fascinating.

She grinned and watched them talk, watched Twilight grow more comfortable with a new friend and watched Rarity begin to fall in love.

“Are you certain?” Rarity said, with just the slightest tremor in her voice. Twilight might have chalked it up to age if she didn’t know any better. After all, her late wife had turned one hundred years old this week.

“I am,” Twilight said. “It’s perfectly safe, I promise you that.”

“Darling, please, I didn’t mean—” Rarity waved that particular concern away. “No, I meant, are you certain? What about, what about the timeline and all of that?”

Twilight shook her head. “It’s fine. I continue to trust you not to divulge anything, and frankly, even if you did, no one would take you seriously.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “Yes, I suppose that’s so. And you mean… now?”

“If you’re ready.”

“What do I need to do to be ready?”

Twilight laughed. “Nothing, I just don’t want to yank you away without you expecting it. Or if you didn’t feel up to it today, we could do it another time…”

“Stars, no! Yes, now, please. Let’s go.”

“Stars indeed,” Twilight mused as she lit her horn. “Come stand next to me.”

Rarity did so, and Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated and the light from her horn washed over them and with a pop they were somewhere else.

Twilight watched Rarity closely, and was gratified to see not a hint of a stumble or unsurety. Her stance was firm and her eyes were wide, taking in everything before them.

“Twilight…” she breathed in wonder.

Satisfied that Rarity was steady, Twilight too turned to take in the view.

They were on a bluff overlooking a beach that was almost recognizable, except it was like someone had taken a photograph and made a serious error with the developer chemicals.

“The ocean is purple,” Twilight explained, “because it has high dissolved potassium permanganate content. Kind of funny, you can take a dip to cure hoof rot—just don’t drink any. And, well, it’d stain your coat.”

She watched Rarity’s eyes, and narrated as her gaze moved around.

“The rocks seem like normal rocks, so far as we’ve seen. We’re not sure how the plants work yet. Honestly, they might not be what we think of as plants at all; the local star is an M-type dwarf and puts out considerably dimmer and redder light than our own, so they probably aren’t actually photosynthesizing as we know it. Ah, and that’s why the sky is yellow.”

Rarity looked up and stared for a moment. “There are… two moons…”

“Three, actually; the smallest satellite isn’t visible at the moment.”

They looked out at the alien landscape.

“This really is another world,” Rarity breathed. “How far from home are we?”

“Do you know what a light-year is?”

Rarity scoffed. “I have been married to Twilight Sparkle for decades. Of course I do. In fact, as I recall, I believe you once told me that our solar system is a few light-days across.”

“So you were listening…” Twilight laughed as she dodged Rarity’s swat. “Yes, okay. We’re currently about two dozen light-years from home.”

Rarity startled a little at that number. “Goodness me, isn’t that quite far?”

“The farthest we’ve been yet. It’s the eleventh habitable planet we’ve managed to visit so far… oh, look!”

She pointed to the far horizon and Rarity craned her neck to follow. “What? That star? Oh, why, it’s moving. What in Equestria—or, er, out of Equestria, I suppose?”

“That’s our research station. It’s just about complete. It will serve as the forward team’s base of operations for the next few decades, to study the planet and determine if it could support life long-term.”

Rarity watched it scoot across the sky. “Two dozen light-years, and…?”

“About five millennia. Give or take.”

Rarity nodded silently. Twilight moved closer, just enough for her wing to brush against Rarity’s barrel, and Rarity immediately leaned into her, pressing her body against Twilight’s, face still turned up to the sky.

“I just thought you might like to know that things work out okay. I know science fiction was never your thing, but still. Ponies don’t just survive; we thrive. We journey to the stars…”

Rarity’s eyes followed the station as it passed its zenith and soared on toward the next horizon. She said nothing, but a single tear rolled down her cheek, and joy and wonder shone from her.

“So, anyway. Happy birthday, Rarity.”

She’d been saving this one.

Twilight wove in and out of the crowd, nodding politely to the rare pony who made eye contact with her. She found an unclaimed seat at one of the tables draped in white linen with a lavender bouquet centerpiece; across the dance floor, she caught sight of, amongst other ponies, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie seated at one of the tables draped in lavender linen with a white rose bouquet centerpiece.

Firefly lanterns glowed overhead, illuminating the ponies dancing, and in their center was Rarity and Twilight, twirling round and round in the finest gowns Rarity had ever crafted. They had eyes only for one another.

Our first dance, she thought wistfully.

As the five-piece orchestra’s song wound to a close, the dancers slowed, and everyone around them applauded heartily, Twilight included. Rarity and Twilight blushed, tearing their gazes away from one another and waving and bowing and laughing.

Twilight watched as each of them moved on to other dances, with family and friends, until she spotted her opening.

As the orchestra struck up their next tune, Twilight slipped through the crowd of happy ponies and leaned in next to Rarity. “May I have this dance?”

Rarity’s eyes lit up at the forgettable sound of her voice and turned to hug her. “Wheatie! You came!”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for all the tea in Kirin Grove,” she said as ponies around them coupled up and began swaying to the music. Rarity leaned into her, pressing their necks together.

“It was a lovely ceremony.”

“Did you slip into the back?”

“Somepony had left a seat open. Providence, perhaps.”

Twilight felt Rarity’s grin.

“How far ahead are you from?”

“Oh, let’s not spoil your wedding day with something as tiresome as numbers,” Twilight said. “Let’s just enjoy the moment.”

“Hmph,” Rarity said. “As you like.”

They swayed and spun in silence for the next few minutes, Twilight savoring every second. Inevitably, the song came to an end, and as the final bars drifted around them, Twilight sighed and pulled back.

Her dance partner gazed at her, and for a moment there was nothing else in the universe except the two of them, and Rarity leaned in, her lips beginning to pucker, and Twilight swiftly turned her head so that Rarity kissed her cheek before drawing back in confusion.

She cleared her throat. “I wish I could stay here forever, but I shouldn’t monopolize the bride. You have your guests, and your family. And your wife.”

Rarity looked flustered. “Of… of course. Well. Thank you for the dance.”

“No, thank you.” Twilight reached out and drew her into a tight hug, and Rarity squeezed her back. “I love you, Rarity.”

“And I you… Wheatie.”

They separated, and as Twilight smiled and turned away she caught sight of Pinkie Pie staring at her, frowning, from her table.

“Enjoy the honeymoon,” she said as she moved off into the crowd.

“Oh, I intend to,” Rarity purred from behind her, and she grinned.

A moment’s quick trot brought her to a sheltered, shadowed corner of the courtyard. She turned back to make sure no one was looking her way any longer, and took one long last look at the wedding reception, at the ponies celebrating, at the brides dancing together again.

And our last, she thought as she disappeared.

A pop echoed through the still air deep within the Everfree Forest, drawing the attention of surprised birds perched in the trees, and Twilight Sparkle stood in what had been an empty clearing but a moment ago.

She surveyed her surroundings, recognizing them despite not setting hoof here for countless millennia.

There was a slight depression in the ground to the leeward side of a boulder that was jutting up out of the ground at an oblique angle, as though something should have been there but had been removed.

She lit her horn and a moment later the depression had deepened to a circular hole some ten feet deep, soil piled high beside it.

There was an ancient box in her satchel. She took it out and opened it. There was an ancient journal inside the box. The box and the journal looked brand new.

For the last time, she opened the journal and paged through it. Every page was filled with a list of dates and times in bright blue ink, and every date and time had a neat line drawn through it in violet. Hundreds of dates and times, across nearly eighty years.

She remembered every one of them.

She put the journal back into the box. Giving in to a sudden urge, she bent and pressed her lips to the front cover, then shut and sealed the box and floated it down to the bottom of the hole.

A moment later the pile of soil was gone, and so was the hole. Instead of a slight depression, there was a slight mounding of the earth, which she tamped flat.

Twilight looked down at the freshly disturbed soil for a long time.

Every single date and time in the journal had been crossed off, every last one, but that was all right.

She lit her horn.

One last stop to make.

Beauty Steals Inward

Twilight lay silently in Rarity’s bed—in their bed—listening to her move about in the bathroom. After a few minutes, the bathroom light went out, and Rarity came into the bedroom, moving slowly.

Twilight smiled, ready to say hello, but Rarity’s eyes never left the floor. She seemed deep in thought. By the time she reached her nightstand and turned down her lamp, Twilight’s little plan to surprise her one last time had gone completely off the rails and she didn’t know what to do.

In the pitch darkness, Twilight held her breath as Rarity settled into her side of the bed and sighed. A wistful sound, Twilight thought.

Then everything was still. Twilight was sure her heart beating in her chest would give her away, but it didn’t.

She’d let it go on too long now. She just had to bite the bit and…

Twilight licked her lips and spoke. “Rarity?”

A twitch. After a moment: “Twilight?”

“Yes.”

“Darling.” Twilight could hear Rarity’s smile. “In case you were not aware, I am old and frail. Did you intend to give me a heart attack just now? Because you very nearly did, and I would have been so upset with you if that was how things ended between us.”

“In my defense, I didn’t think you could possibly miss an alicorn lying in your bed.”

“Yes, well,” Rarity struggled upright and reached over to ignite her bedside lamp again, bringing it around to get a better look at her bedmate, “I’m forced to admit my eyesight isn’t quite what it used to be, and—” She caught sight of Twilight and gasped. “Twilight, dear, what’s happened to you?”

“Just… time.” Twilight smiled softly. “Old and frail, you said? Maybe it’s not so surprising you missed the alicorn lying in your bed.”

Rarity reached out a hoof to ever so gently stroke her face. “My darling. I never thought… from how far ahead have you come back?”

“How old am I, do you mean?” She laughed quietly. “I’m not even sure anymore. You sort of… lose track, after the ten-thousandth year or so. Not more than twenty thousand, I think. Doubly hard to keep track, with all the time spent out of my own time. My personal chronology is less of a timeline and more of a time knot.”

“But so, you’re… you are…” Rarity looked down at the princess’s body, insubstantial and sylphlike beneath her quilt.

“Dying,” Twilight breathed. “Not long now. And if my calculations are correct, if I’ve timed it right, we should… go… together.”

“Oh, Twilight…”

“Never did forgive myself for leaving you here alone. Should have known better. But I’m here now.” Twilight looked up at her Rarity, bathed in lamplight, and smiled.

“I’d really thought I’d seen you for the last time. When I sent you off on your trip this morning, I… This is more than I ever could have asked for.”

“Except… except…” A frown creased Twilight’s brow. “I’m not her. Not your Twilight. She’s out there right now, and I shouldn’t be here, not really.”

“You are exactly where you should be,” Rarity said, gently but forcefully. She laid a hoof under Twilight’s chin and drew her up and leaned in and kissed her. Twilight hesitated a moment, frozen, but warmth spread through her and she closed her eyes, returning the kiss.

When they broke apart, Rarity put her forehead to Twilight’s and whispered, “You’ve always been my Twilight.”

A tear trailed down Twilight’s cheek. “I have.”

With care, they rearranged themselves, cuddling up together. They talked, and laughed, and kissed, and as the hours drained away the talking and laughing and kissing grew weaker.

At length, Twilight grew quiet, her eyes unfocused, and she sighed. “It’s almost time, Rarity. I can… feel it.”

Rarity nodded, and pulled back slightly, just enough to be able to see her. “I feel it too, dear,” she murmured. “Just a few minutes, I should think.”

“I’m so lucky,” Twilight whispered. “So very lucky. I love you, Rarity.”

“I love you, my beloved Twilight. This truly has been the best life I could have asked for.”

Twilight smiled weakly, her eyes drooping shut. “I don’t know what… comes next, but…”

Rarity waited for Twilight to finish, but she was silent.

“Twilight?” Rarity stroked her cheek with a hoof.

The alicorn let out a long, slow breath, and was still.

Rarity’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Oh, my Twilight.”

She exhaled and felt her own fire, whatever force animated her, truly start to flicker, guttering down. It almost felt like falling asleep.

Just at the edge of darkness, she became aware of some brightness, despite the lamp having gone out some time ago. She found her eyes had drifted shut of their own accord, and she managed to open them just enough to see Twilight’s form had changed.

She was glowing.

Pure, radiant, shimmering energy.

She… sparkled.

Rarity reached out for her, and her hoof passed right through her, awash in warmth and light. She felt bathed in love and wonder and contentment and peace.

Slowly, the shimmering sparkles faded, spreading out and dissolving into nothingness. She could just barely make out her quilt falling softly, gently, to the bed.

A smile crept across her face as her eyes drifted shut once more, and nearly soundlessly she murmured:

“See you soon.”